The Art of Asha by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely is a book about the spiritual origin of chess. 

I would like to share the old persian legend about how the Art of Asha was created.

"The word chess derives from the Persian "Shah," meaning King, which originally was "Asha," the Cosmic Order. The legend survives that King Vishtaspa of Persia became extremely bored with life, for he had accomplished every­thing he wished: he was satiated with triumphs in war, tired of hunting, surfeited with the intrigues and pleasures of his court. The King suffered from ennui and finally offered an unlimited reward to the man who could give him some interest in life. No one was successful until Zarathustra appeared with tile original, undistorted form of today's chess: the Art of Asha. He taught the King the rules and how to enact it, and through it demonstrated to the King all the laws of the universe and life. He interpreted them as he alone could do, as no present day chess player would think to do, and the King was extremely satisfied and his interest in life was renewed. He thereupon told Zarathustra to ask for whatever he might want and said it should be given to him. Zarathustra wished to give the King a lesson which would teach him not to be so megalomanic as to think he could give anyone everything he wanted. So Zarathustra told the king he wanted only a very simple and modest thing: one grain of wheat on the first square of the chess board, two on the second square, the square of two on the third square, the square of that on the fourth square, and so on until all sixty-four squares were filled with the square of the amount on the previous square. The King laughed and said he would send Zarathustra the wheat in a few days, thinking what a fool he was to ask only for a few grains of wheat when he could have had gold and fine treasure.

He told his men to calculate the amount of wheat and send it to Zarathustra. He was surprised when, after several weeks, they came to him and told him the quantity ofwheat which he should deliver to Zarathustra was more than that in the whole kingdom. Even if he gathered together all the wheat in the empire, it would not be one-thousandth of one-thousandth of the amount he had promised to Zarathustra. The King was very shocked to learn this and to know that he could not fulfill his promise. He sent for Zarathustra and told him how ashamed he was. Zarathustra answered that he did not want the wheat; he only wanted to teach the King a lesson, and he thereupon retired to his forest. This is the ancient legend about the origin of chess - the Art of Asha - which traces chess back to ancient Persia."

Wheat and chessboard problem